GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER. 83 
side of the neck is a white patch; nape, black; chin, throat, 
and breast, dingy or buff white; back, black. 
The wings expand to the width of one foot, and have the 
first feather very short; the second shorter than the seventh, 
but longer than the eighth; the third, fourth, and fifth the 
same length as the seventh, the sixth the longest. The outer 
greater wing coverts black, the imner white; lesser wing 
coverts, black; primaries, black, with from two to five white 
patches on the outer web of each feather, and rounder ones 
on the inner; secondaries, black; tertiaries, black. The tail 
has the two middle feathers black, pointed, and longer than 
the rest; the two next black, tipped with white; the next 
black and white, the white barred with black; the middle 
feathers are three inches and three quarters in length, while 
the outer ones are only an inch and a quarter; upper tail 
coverts, black; under tail coverts, red; legs and toes, blackish 
grey, the former feathered part of the way down in front; 
claws, much hooked and black. 
The female is without the red on the head. These birds 
moult as late as the beginning of November. 
Young; at first the whole head is scarlet, till the first 
moult, when the females lose that colour entirely, and the 
males retain it only on the back of the head. ‘The young 
of the year are a little less in size than the old birds; and 
all the colours are less bright. Forehead, white; head, on 
the back, black, and in front, behind the forehead, scarlet; 
crown, red, sometimes with a few black feathers interspersed. 
I am much indebted to W. F. W. Bird, Esq., for a careful 
‘resume’ of the various authorities ‘pro and con,’ on the 
subject of a supposed occurrence of another species of Wood- 
pecker, the Middle Spotted; from which, on the whole, it 
seems to be incontestably established that it is only the 
young of the one before us; though, as Hunt remarks in 
his ‘British Ornithology,’ ‘it is certainly a curious circumstance 
that the beautiful scarlet on the head of the young is next 
to the white forehead, whilst in the old bird the scarlet is 
at the back of the head, and the black next to the white 
forehead; and also that in the case of a nest of three young 
birds and an old one, sent to him from the Rev. Mr. 
Whitear, one of the young ones weighed more than its 
parent; but ‘maternal solicitude’ may have been the cause 
both of the one and the other effect. 
